This chapter discusses several sociological explanations for delinquency. It summarizes Shaw and McKay's ecological perspective that found crime was concentrated in urban areas with high populations of low-SES individuals, immigrants, and African Americans. This was attributed to "social disorganization" where residents could not exert control. It also reviews learning theories like differential association, which argues deviance is learned through social interactions, and subcultural theories, which suggest youth often act according to different, conflicting values from the larger society.

1. Juvenile Justice: An Introduction, 7th ed.
Chapter 4
SOCIOLOGICAL
EXPLANATIONS OF
DELINQUENCY

2. Chapter 4
What You Need to Know
• Shaw and McKay found that crime and delinquency was concentrated in
the center of cities, where lower-SES individuals and immigrants or
African Americans lived. The reason they offer for this finding was “social
disorganization,” meaning the residents did not exert control, thus
allowing crime to flourish.
• Differential association argues that deviance is learned just as other
behavior is learned. Modifications of differential association include
differential identification (which adds the idea of learning from images in
the media) and differential reinforcement (which argues we learn from
the results of our actions).
• Subcultural theories suggest that youths often act in accordance with a
different set of values and beliefs that invariably conflict with the dictates
of the larger society, thus leading them to be considered deviant.
• The techniques of neutralization presented by Sykes and Matza allow
youths to violate the law while maintaining a positive self-image as a
conforming member of society.

3. Chapter 4
What You Need to Know (Cont’d)
• Routine activities theory argues that a criminal act requires a motivated
offender and a suitable target to coincide where there is an absence of
capable guardianship.
• Strain theory suggests that crime is a logical outcome of the disjunction
between the socially prescribed goals and the means available for
achieving those goals.
• Hirschi’s social control theory states that “delinquent acts result when an
individual’s bond to society is weak or broken.” Bond is composed of
attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.
• Self-control theory argues that behavior is controlled by factors an
individual internalizes early in life. Good self-control keeps an individual
from violating the law.
• The labeling perspective proposes that involvement in the juvenile justice
system leads to more deviant behavior by labeling the individual as a
deviant and forcing him or her to act in accordance with that label.
• Attempts to integrate theories into more unified, coherent explanations
of deviance have met only limited success in advancing sociological
theory.

4. Chapter 4
Sociological Explanations
• Most prevalent explanations of delinquent behavior.
• Great changes in society during and after the
industrial revolution led to a natural view that
deviant behavior was an outgrowth of social
relationships.
• Most sociological explanations are accompanied by
attempts at empirical research and often find some
degree of support.
• Reflect elements of both Classicism and Positivism.

5. Chapter 4
The Ecological Perspective
• Also called the “Chicago School” because a great
deal of the research done using the city of Chicago as
a focus.
• Explains deviance as a natural outgrowth of the
location in which it occurs.
• Great growth in the number and size of large cities.
• New urban areas were densely populated; many of
the new residents were uneducated, unemployed
and could not speak English; increases in various
social problems—including criminal activity.

6. Chapter 4
The Ecological Perspective
Shaw and McKay (1942)
• Analyzed where delinquency occurred in Chicago.
• Crime and delinquency was highest:
– In and around the central business district
– In poor areas of the city
– In areas dominated by immigrants and African Americans
• Pointed to the same physical location in the city, specifically
the city center where economic conditions were poorest.
• Stability of the delinquency levels in the same areas over time
• Delinquency problem was a result of constant turnover of
people in the area.
• Turnover caused social disorganization, or the lack of
organization to control and make improvements in area.

7. Chapter 4
The Ecological Perspective
Sources of Control
• Neighborhood control can come from a variety of sources
• Bursik and Grasmick (1993) identify three primary sources:
Sources of Neighborhood Control
Private
interpersonal relationships: family, friends, and close associates
Parochial
neighborhood networks and institutions: schools, churches, businesses,
social organizations/groups
Public
agencies and institutions of the city, state, or other governmental unit
• Lower-class, transient, high-crime neighborhoods have particular
trouble developing these sources of control
• Inability to marshal the public support needed for effective
delinquency control- vertical integration

8. Chapter 4
The Ecological Perspective
Critique:
• Lack of a single coherent theory
• Many researchers attributed results based on
grouped data to individuals- this is known as the
ecological fallacy
• Knowledge about an area tells little about a specific
individual
This early work brought crime and delinquency theory
squarely into the sociological tradition.

9. Chapter 4
Learning Theory
• Sees deviance as a result of learning.
• Variety of factors contribute to the
learning process:
–With whom an individual has contact
–What the individual observes
–The consequences of one’s behavior

10. Chapter 4
Learning Theory
Differential Association:
• Sutherland (1939)
• Views learning as the culmination of various social
inputs faced by individuals throughout their lives.
• Children learn to accept deviance the same as
conventional behavior.
• Major sources of learning are the people with whom
an individual comes in contact, particularly the
family, peers, and religious institutions.
• Nine specific points to differential association.

11. Chapter 4
Learning Theory
Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory
1. Criminal behavior is learned.
2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of
communication.
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate
personal groups.
4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of the
crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple; (b) the
specification of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal
codes as favorable or unfavorable.
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to
violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law.
7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.
8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and
anticriminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other
learning.
9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not
explained by those general needs and values, because noncriminal behavior is an
expression of the same needs and values.

12. Chapter 4
Learning Theory
Concerns with Differential Association Theory
• Sutherland failed to define or operationalize many of
his terms.
– Frequency (number of contacts), duration (length of a
contact), priority (temporal order of the contacts), and
intensity (significance of the contact) definitions supplied
by other researchers.
• Most of the empirical support is indirect and highly
qualified.
• Explicitly discounted the influence of factors other
than social, face-to-face contacts.
• Changes in the modern world have prompted
researchers to modify and extend the original ideas
of differential association.

13. Chapter 4
Learning Theory
Differential Identification:
• Glaser (1956)
• Proposes that personal association is not
always necessary for the transmission of
behavioral cues.
• Real and fictional presentations on television
and in other mass media provide information
concerning acceptable behavior.
• Role-taking: child assumes the role that is
portrayed in the media.

14. Chapter 4
Learning Theory
Differential Reinforcement:
• Jeffery (1965)
• The ideas of operant conditioning.
• An individual learns from a variety of sources, both
social and nonsocial.
• If the behavior results in a pleasurable payoff (e.g.,
useful stolen goods) the behavior will be repeated.
• The absence of an acceptable return on the behavior
or experiencing an undesirable outcome (such as
being caught and imprisoned) would prompt
avoidance of the activity in the future.

15. Chapter 4
Subcultural Theories
• Subcultural theorists focus directly on the fact of
diversity in the population.
• Defining subculture is not easy.
– In its simplest sense, a subculture is a smaller part of a
larger culture.
– Subculture exists within and is part of the larger culture.
– Typically refers to a set of values, beliefs, ideas, views,
and/or meanings that a group of individuals holds and that
are to some degree different from those of the larger
culture.
• Delinquency and criminality are the result of
individuals attempting to act in accordance with
subcultural norms.

16. Chapter 4
Subcultural Theories
Lower-class Gang Delinquency
• Cohen (1955)
• Lower-class boys feel ill-equipped to compete in and
cannot succeed in a middle-class society.
• Lower-class boys are expected to follow the goals
and aspirations of the middle class.
• The failure to succeed in terms of middle-class values
leads to feelings of failure and diminished self-worth.
• The result is culture conflict: by following one set of
cultural (or subcultural) practices, the individual is
violating the proscriptions of another culture.

17. Chapter 4
Subcultural Theories
• Aspects of “lower-class gang delinquency”:
– Malicious: act with the intent of causing trouble and harm
for another person, not for what it brings the person.
– Negativistic: much of the deviant activity is a means of
tormenting others.
– Nonutilitarian: immediate “hedonistic” pleasure instead
of supplying any long-term need or solution.
• In general, there appears to be little point in the
behavior besides causing trouble for the larger
middle-class culture.

18. Chapter 4
Subcultural Theories
Lower-class Male Subculture
• Miller (1958)
• The lower class operates under a distinct set of cultural
values, or focal concerns (next slide).
• At the same time that these values provide positive
reinforcement in the lower-class world, they bring about a
natural conflict with middle-class values.
• Goal of the lower-class individual is not to violate the law or
the middle-class norms.
• Goal is to follow the focal concerns of their class and peers.
• Deviant behavior, therefore, is a by-product of following the
subcultural focal concerns.

19. Chapter 4
Trouble Refers to the fact that lower-class males spend a large amount of time
preoccupied with getting into and out of trouble. Trouble may bring about desired
outcomes such as attention and prestige.
Toughness Emphasis on physical prowess, athletic skill, masculinity, and bravery.
Partly a response of lower-class males raised in [single] female-headed households.
Smartness Basically the idea of being “streetwise.” The concern is on how to
manipulate the environment and others to your own benefit without being
subjected to sanctions of any kind.
Excitement Refers to the idea that lower-class individuals are oriented around short-term
hedonistic desires. Activities, such as gambling and drug use, are undertaken
for the immediate excitement or gratification that is generated.
Fate The belief that, in the long run, individuals have little control over their lives. Luck
and fortune dictate the outcome of behavior. Whatever is supposed to happen will
happen regardless of the individual’s wishes. This allows for a wide latitude in
behavior.
Autonomy While the individual believes in fate, there is a strong desire to resist
outside control imposed by other persons. Individuals want total control over
themselves until fate intervenes.

20. Chapter 4
Subcultural Theories
Sykes and Matza: Techniques of Neutralization
• Subtle failure in subcultural theories to address the fact that
no individual operates exclusively in the subculture.
• Every individual must deal with both the subcultural and the
larger cultural expectations.
• Requires individuals to find justifications for the discrepancies
between different lifestyles and behaviors.
• Five techniques of neutralization that allow the juvenile to
accommodate the deviant behavior while maintaining a self-image
as a conformist (next slide).
• Youths invoke the techniques to justify their behavior in light
of confrontation with conventional cultural values.

21. Chapter 4
Denial of Responsibility The youth may claim that the action was an accident
or, more likely, assert that he or she was forced into the action by
circumstances beyond his or her control.
Denial of Injury Focuses on the amount of harm caused regardless of violating
the law. The absence of harm to an individual may involve pointing to a lack
of physical injury, the action was a prank, or the person or business could
afford the loss.
Denial of the Victim The juvenile can deny the existence of a victim by
claiming self-defense or retaliation, the absence of a victim (such as
involving a business and not a person), and/or that characteristics of the
victim brought the harm on himself or herself (such as hazing a
homosexual).
Condemnation of the Condemners The youth turns the tables on those
individuals who condemn his or her behavior by pointing out that the
condemners are no better than he or she. In essence, the condemners are
also deviant.
Appeal to Higher Loyalties Conflict between the dictates of two groups will be
resolved through adherence to the ideas of one group. The juvenile may
see greater reward and more loyalty to the subcultural group on some
issues which, in turn, lead to deviant behavior.

22. Chapter 4
Subcultural Theories
Critique of the Subcultural Approach
• Greatest problem entails identifying a subculture.
– Typical process of identifying subcultures is through the
behavior of the individuals.
– If you act a certain way, you are in a subculture, which is
why you act that way: this is tautological.
• The use of behaviors to identify subcultures results in
substituting behaviors for values.
• Questionable to what extent you can impute values
from behaviors.
• Possible middle-class bias in many subcultural
explanations.

23. Chapter 4
Routine Activities and Rational Choice
• Basic premise that the movement of offenders and
victims over space and time places them in situations
in which criminal activity will be more or less
possible.
• Routine activities perspective assumes that the
normal behavior of individuals contributes to deviant
events.
– Cohen and Felson (1979)
– Three criteria necessary for the commission of a crime:
1. The presence of a suitable target
2. A motivated offender
3. An absence of guardians

24. Chapter 4
Routine Activities and Rational Choice
• Rational choice theory assumes that potential
offenders make choices based on various factors in
the physical and social environments.
– Cornish and Clarke (1986)
– Does not mean that offenders plan their behavior in detail
– Unplanned, spontaneous behavior may rest on past
observations, experiences, and routine activities that lay
the foundation for unconscious decision making
– Poses an interesting conundrum for juvenile justice:
• If one assumes that youths do not have the capacity to make
truly informed decisions, to what extent can it be claimed that
they are making rational choices?

25. Chapter 4
Strain Theories
• View deviance as a direct result of a social structure that
stresses achievement but fails to provide adequate legitimate
means of succeeding.
• Two basic underlying assumptions:
1. Man is inherently egoistic.
2. Society does not provide equal access to the means of reaching one’s
wishes and desires.
• Mismatch between the expectations or goals of the individual
and the available means to achieve those goals is called
anomie (state of normlessness).
– The inability of the individual to regulate his or her expectations in
accordance with the societal structure.
• Anomie may result in various forms of deviant behavior,
including crime.

26. Chapter 4
Strain Theories
Merton: Modes of Adaptation
• Outlines five modes of adaptation, or ways an individual may
respond, to the strain between goals and means.
Mode of Adaptation Cultural Goals Institutionalized Means
Conformity + +
Innovation + –
Ritualism – +
Retreatism – –
Rebellion ± ±
+ means acceptance, – means rejection, ± means rejection and substitution
• Delinquency appears in innovation, retreatism, and rebellion, in
which accepted modes of behavior (means) are replaced by
unacceptable actions

27. Chapter 4
Strain Theories
General Strain Theory
• Suggests that strain can arise from two additional
sources:
1. The removal of desired or valued stimuli
2. The presentation of negative stimuli, which may cause an
individual to become angry or frustrated
• Sources of strain may prompt individuals to respond
with delinquent or criminal behavior.
• There are also many nondeviant coping mechanisms
that an individual can utilize.
• There is empirical support for general strain theory.

28. Chapter 4
Strain Theories
Assessing Strain Theory:
• Major problem of operationalizing the key concepts, such as
anomie, aspirations, opportunity, and perceptions.
• The assumed relationship between strain and deviant
behavior is not clear:
– In some instances, deviance appears to be related to low aspirations.
– In others, deviance may actually cause changes in aspirations.
• Many studies focus on middle- and upper-class youths, while
the Mertonian strain theory appears more applicable to
lower-class and gang activity.
• Fails to explain why one person chooses deviance and
another does not.

29. Chapter 4
Social Control Theory
• Social control theories seek to find factors that keep
an individual from becoming deviant.
Reckless: Containment Theory
• Proposes that there are factors that promote
conformity as well as forces promoting deviance.
• The individual may have some control over his or her
own behavior.
• Two types of containment and three forces
promoting deviance.

30. Chapter 4
Social Control Theory
Elements of Reckless’s Containment Theory
Forces promoting conformity:
• Outer Containment
– The influence of family, peers, and environment on behavior; social pressure,
supervision, training, and group membership
• Inner Containment
– Individual factors such as self-concept, tolerance of frustration, goal-directedness,
internalized moral codes
Forces promoting deviance:
• Internal Pushes
– Restlessness, discontent, anxiety, hostility
• External Pressures
– Poverty, unemployment, minority status, social inequality
• External Pulls
– Deviant peers, subcultures, media presentations

31. Chapter 4
Social Control Theory
Hirschi: Control Theory
• States that “delinquent acts result when an
individual’s bond to society is weak or broken.”
• Bond is developed through socialization during early
childhood and consists of four elements:
1. Attachment
2. Commitment
3. Involvement
4. Belief
• Weak or broken bond does not cause deviance.
Rather, it allows for deviance.

32. Chapter 4
Social Control Theory
Elements of Hirschi’s Bond
Attachment
• “Sensitivity to the opinion of others” (p. 16)
• The more an individual cares about what others think of himself/herself, the less likely
he/she will choose behavior that brings about negative input.
Commitment
• A “person invests time, energy, himself, in a certain line of activity” (p. 20)
• As a person builds an investment in conventional endeavors, any choice of deviant
behavior will place that investment at risk.
Involvement
• “Engrossment in conventional activities” (p. 22)
• Because time and energy are limited, once they are used in the pursuit of conventional
activities, there is no time or energy left for deviant behavior.
Belief
• “The existence of a common value system within the society or group” (p. 23)
• As a person is socialized into and accepts the common belief system, he/she will be less
likely to violate those beliefs through deviant activity.

33. Chapter 4
Social Control Theory
Problematic Issues with Hirschi’s Theory
• Does not adequately explain how bond becomes
weak or broken.
• The relative impact of the four elements of bond is
left unresolved (e.g., is attachment most
important?).
• Drift between delinquency and conformity cannot be
explained using control theory.
• Assumes that all bonding is to conventional,
nondeviant lifestyles (it may be possible that a
juvenile is bonded to deviance)

34. Chapter 4
Social Control Theory
Self-Control Theory
• Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) argue that self-control,
internalized early in life, can serve to keep a
person from involvement in deviant behavior.
• Primary source of self-control is good parenting.
• Should the parents fail to build self-control, other
social institutions, such as schools, may influence its
formation but are typically poor substitutes for the
family.
• Once self-control is internalized, it serves to modify
an individual’s behavior throughout his or her life.

35. Chapter 4
The Labeling Perspective
• Basic assumption is that being labeled as deviant by social
control agents forces the person to act according to the label
• Foundation in the ideas of symbolic interactionism
– Every individual develops his or her self-image through a process of
interaction with the surrounding world
– How an individual sees himself or herself is determined by how that
person thinks others see him or her
– A simple way of viewing this process is through what Cooley (1902)
calls the looking-glass self
• Tannenbaum (1938) saw the sanctioning of deviant behavior
as a step in altering a juvenile’s self-image from that of a
normal, conventional youth to that of being a delinquent
• Process of labeling entails a transfer of evil from the act to
the actor

36. Chapter 4
The Labeling Perspective
Lemert: Primary and Secondary Deviance
• Two types of deviance:
– Primary deviance: those actions that “are rationalized or
otherwise dealt with as functions of a socially acceptable
role.”
– Secondary deviance: when an individual “begins to employ
his deviant behavior or a role based upon it as a means of
defense, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert
problems created by the consequent societal reaction to
him.”
– The behavior is secondary if the act cannot be rationalized
as the outcome of a nondeviant social role and is
committed as an attack or defense against societal
reaction.
– Secondary deviance, therefore, is a mentalistic construct.

37. Chapter 4
The Labeling Perspective
• Reasons for conforming to the label:
– A deviant label makes participation in conventional activity
difficult.
– Accepting the label blunts the impact of any negative
feedback provided by society.
– Individuals conform to labels as a means of striking out
against those who are condemning them — “I’ll show you.”
• A single deviant act generally will not lead to the
successful application of a label.
• Lemert (1951) proposes an outline of repeated
primary deviant acts followed by increasingly
stronger social reactions that eventually culminate in
the imposition and acceptance of a deviant label.

38. Chapter 4
The Integration and Elaboration of
Theories
• Trend to attempt to integrate various theories into more
unified, coherent explanations of deviance.
• Attempts to take components of various theories and
construct a single explanation that incorporates the best parts
of the individual theories.
• Social control, strain, and differential association theories have
been typically used.
• A sequential processes leading to deviance has been proposed.
• For example, strain is seen as leading to a weakened bond to
conventional society, which in turn leads to increased bonding
with deviants and subsequent deviant behavior. Mediating this
entire process is the influence of learning.

39. Chapter 4
The Integration and Elaboration of
Theories
• Developmental theories, or life-course theories, generally
reflect efforts that incorporate ideas from several theories and
perspectives
• Reintegrative shaming incorporates elements of several
theories.
– Labeling and symbolic interaction are important for understanding the
risk in shaming someone.
– Social control elements appear in the need to bond the person to
society.
– Family is a key actor in teaching proper behavior (learning theory).
• Integrated theories have yet to undergo rigorous testing.
• The fact that no single theory has adequately explained
deviance suggests that this new direction should be continued.

40. Chapter 4
Impact of Theories on Juvenile Justice
• Social learning theory provides support for interventions that
focus on providing proper role models and environments
conducive to conforming behavior.
• Trends toward deinstitutionalization, community corrections,
and less restrictive interventions rely on the arguments of
labeling theory.
• Movements toward incarceration and deterrence of juveniles
clearly rely on Classical and Neoclassical assumptions of free
will and hedonistic choice.
• Educational programs, economic assistance, vocational
training, physical improvement of inner cities, and other
efforts can be traced to strain, subcultural, learning, and
ecological explanations of social ills.